Common Core gets mixed review

Sunday

Mar 16, 2014 at 8:00 AMMar 17, 2014 at 11:05 AM

By Mike GleasonDaily News Staff

In July 2010, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to adopt the Common Core State Standards.Nearly four years later, reaction to the curriculum is mixed: Some say it is more rigorous and focused on the real world, while others express skepticism about its development and implementation.According to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Common Core curriculum has several benefits over the one currently in place. Department officials said it emphasizes college and career readiness.In English instruction, the new curriculum represents a shift from works of literature to informational texts. The state claims this change will broaden reading and writing lessons to cover literacy in science and technical subjects. Moe Coyle, a math coach for Garfield Middle School in Revere, said math instruction will change as well. Coyle, who was involved with adopting the standards at his school, said the new math standards are more grounded in the real world and less abstract."There’s a difference in the way percentages are taught," he said. "Students are no longer taught just to move the decimal point two places, but to think about proportions and ratios and how they relate."Coyle said the way instruction is delivered has changed as well."In old math classes, students might sit down and get 30 problems. Now, they might get three problems that are more difficult and uncomfortable," he said. "Bigger and better problems really help them think outside the box."Framingham Superintendent Stacy Scott said he believes the Common Core curriculum will be beneficial to his district."It does help us, I think, teach better," he said. "It will be a challenge for us to find the time for teachers to spend together to move to Common Core state standards."Scott said the introduction of the Common Core coincided with a regular review of the curriculum within his district."We’re using it as an opportunity to look at ways to strengthen our curriculum," he said. "The rigor is there – it’s a little more real-world based about competencies and knowledge."Scott said it can take three to four years to fully cycle through the district’s curriculum, but he anticipated the district would move quickly to adopt Common Core."In two years, the state will adopt the PARCC test," the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, which tests according to the curriculum, he said. "We will work to make sure we are as ready as possible in two years."Mendon-Upton Regional School District Superintendent Joseph Maruszczak said he had a mixed perspective on the curriculum."I do think the standards are rigorous," he said. "They represent pushing not only the commonwealth, but other states, forward to give students the content and skills they need to be successful in the 21st-century workforce."Maruszczak said his principle objection to the curriculum was what he characterized as an over-reliance on testing to measure student success."The PARCC test represents a greater degree of testing than even the MCAS," he said. "There are additional testing sessions over a larger breadth of grades.""If MCAS and the state frameworks have been so successful, why then do still upward of one-third of students matriculating at state universities require basic, remedial courses?" he said.Maruszczak said the feedback he’s received on the curriculum has been similarly mixed."I think, by and large, parents are still unaware of it – they might know bits and pieces," he said. "I think the teachers feel tremendous pressure to make some of the shifts."Maruszczak said he believed his district would adopt the curriculum fully within the next year or two."The timeline is still a bit of a moving target," he said. "The PARCC test is still not officially approved by the state Board of Education yet."Michael Watson, a Mendon parent, is involved in efforts to get the state to reconsider Common Core. He said he feels the process for adopting the standards was flawed and that the standards themselves are inadequate and remove local control from the districts."Unlike the education reforms of the ‘90s, where there were public hearings and transparency, none of that happened with Common Core," he said. "The fact that there was no real public debate on this is a big issue.""They’re cutting out more than half of the classic literature you and I were taught," he said. "They’re relying heavily on informational texts now."Watson said he felt the state should conduct a review of the curriculum."I’m not someone who says we have to scrap the entire thing," he said. "If it’s good, we can keep it. If it needs a revamp, we can revamp it."Mike Gleason can be reached at 508-634-7546 or mgleason@wickedlocal.com. For news throughout the day, follow him on Twitter @MGleason_MDN.

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